


Addio al passato

by Drusilla_951



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: A sneak peek into Morse's affair with Claudine, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because we've seen Season/Series 5, Character Study, Classical Music LPs, Endeavour Morse Whump (just a little bit), Episode Related, Episode: s05e03 Passenger, F/M, Gen, Musical References, Operas, Romance, Some hints about Fancy and Trewlove's future relationship, Soul-Searching, Soul-searching with a short-lived Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drusilla_951/pseuds/Drusilla_951
Summary: What happened to the signed Rosalind Calloway record stolen from Morse’s flat?How it came back to his owner and what it means to him is at the heart of this slightly AU fic.Tosca’s most famous aria floated around Morse, weaving a spell around him. But a spell whose potency had now lost much of its charms, despite his eagerness to listen to the voice he had thought vanished in the mists of his memories, as buying another recording had proved near impossible.‘Why?’ he asked himself, unable to shake his unease. Pondering that unwelcome mystery, he settled more comfortably in the armchair, crossing his legs and slipping a pillow beneath his back to ease the sore. Was it that he could no longer separate the dead woman who sang so persuasively from the cold blooded murderess planning in such punctilious details the demise of two innocent people? Had he invested in her all the qualities and frailties of the opera heroines she sang so beautifully?
Relationships: Claudine/Endeavour Morse, Endeavour Morse & Joan Thursday, Endeavour Morse & Shirley Trewlove, Endeavour Morse / Claudine (Endeavour TV), Endeavour Morse/Rosalind Stromming, George Fancy & Endeavour Morse
Comments: 21
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstridContraMundum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/gifts), [Mud_Lark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mud_Lark/gifts).



> ‘ _Addio al passato_ ’ means ‘farewell to the past’ in Italian. It’s a voluntary play on words with ‘ _Addio del passato_ ,’ La Traviata’s last aria, sung when Violetta, the dying courtesan, is waiting to see her lover Alfredo one last time.  
>   
> ‘ _Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti_ , (Farewell, smiling dreams of the past,)  
>  _Le rose del volto gia sono pallenti ;_ (The roses in my cheeks are already pallescent;)  
>  _L'amore d'Alfredo perfino mi manca,_ (I'm also missing Alfredo's love)  
>  _Conforto, sostegno dell’ anima stanca._ (Comfort, support for my tired soul.)  
>  _Conforto ! Sostegno !_ (Comfort! Support!)  
>  _Ah, della traviata sorridi al desio ;_ (Oh, smile at the desire of the forsaken woman;)  
>  _A lei, deh, perdona ; tu accoglila, o Dio !_ (To her, oh, grant forgiveness; welcome her, O God,)  
>  _Ah ! Tutto, tutto fini. Or tutto, tutto fini !_ ’ (Ah! It is all over.)  
>   
> All my gratitude goes to **[Mud_Lark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mud_Lark/pseuds/Mud_Lark)** who went above the call of friendship and Beta-read most of this fic. Thank you so much for your edits! Your eagle eyes and detailed comments improved this fic tenfold!  
> Ma gratitude extends also to **[AstridContraMundum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridContraMundum/pseuds/AstridContraMundum)** who Beta'ed the last few pages.  
>   
> All the standard **disclaimers** apply: _Endeavour_ doesn’t belong to me, and I’m just borrowing it for a while. Some dialogues are Russell Lewis’ and Julian Mitchell’s ( _Masonic Mysteries_ ).  
>   
> 

_No man ever steps in the same river twice  
for it's not the same river and he's not the same man_.  
Heraclitus

  
  


The reggae rhythm flowed from the turntable, valiantly unfazed by the scratches on the LP adding to its beat. Its staccato sound wove an ironical counterpoint to the blond WPC’s footsteps strolling by the street.

Her pace slowed down as Shirley Trewlove neared the second-hand records stall.

The Brennan Street Market mostly offered clothes, new and second-hand, a few pompously labelled ‘antiques’ carefully organized on trestles by an overeager dealer, and an assortments of books sellers favoured by College youths. But it was the records that drew the most attention from the passers-by, thanks to the background music.

Closer to the turntable, several wooden crates offered rows of second-hand LPs to the prospective buyers. However, there were few people in the open-air market, and even less in front of these offerings.

Perhaps the music advertising the stand wasn’t appropriate for selling classical music records. The current customer openly disdained the row of opera LPs, focusing instead on the farthest crate full of reggae and pop records; however, from his disappointed sneer, it appeared that the vendor would be disappointed in him, too. However, unfazed by this probable forthcoming frustration, the bulky man busied himself with stuffing a crate roughly with additional records, at the risk of breaking them.

Making the rounds wasn’t Trewlowe’s favourite duty; still, she did it with a slight smile on her lips, her hands loosely holding the strap of her handbag, seemingly half lost in her thoughts.

A casual observer would have labelled her an attractive girl, wondered if she were thinking of her boyfriend, or even asked himself why she hadn’t chosen modelling as a job. A more astute one would have dismissed her outward shapely loveliness and noticed the acuteness of her gaze and the way her roving eyes seemed to file all the details in her surroundings for future use.

As the WPC’s gaze flitted over the stand, she stopped in her tracks, her eyes drawn to a tantalizing offering. As it were, the upper side of a record barely visible above the rim of a crate, beckoned insistently for her attention. Displayed on the record sleeve, a name asked to be recognized once more by the casual observer. In that ordinary morning, it drew as much as much astonishment as the singer had gathered laurels during in her life.

 _Rosalind C_ —, it spelled.

The portrait on the mint-condition cover was faintly smiling through the planks of the crate, the woman’s eyes arrested Trewlove’s. When, flaunting her most innocent expression on her face, the WPC pulled the record out, the brown coloured photograph, staring back at her from the cream-coloured background of the record cover, confirmed her first impression.

The woman’s face was good looking in an understated way; not aggressively beautiful, but with a penetrating charm. Posh, indeed, but not in a stuck-up manner. Brown hair framed an oval face, a soft halo pushed back in a natural style that bespoke of a meticulous styling; the very same qualities that had endeared her to countless music loving admirers and made her a diva whose name was both a delightful secret exchanged between opera connoisseurs and a ‘name’ guaranteeing a full house to concert impresarios.

Yet Trewlove didn’t have to read the full name featured next to the face to identify it.

 _Rosalind Calloway_.

Her father, Dr. Trewlove, who prided himself on his cultured tastes between house calls to his patients, treasured her records. All the more, since Miss Calloway had cut her career short. ‘Got married or some other blunder,’ Dr. Trewlove usually grumbled, his disappointment obvious.

Privately, Shirley Trewlove agreed with his assessment. Why should a woman like Miss Calloway stop a fulfilling and successful artistic career just because her husband had so decreed? After all, in marrying her, the man knew what he was doing…

So, it wasn’t the face or the name which nonplussed Trewlove. It was the inscription signed in a bold hand on the sleeve, ‘ _To Morse, Un bel di_ (One fine day).’

Distorted as a faraway echo, Trewlove recalled Morse’s stoic answer to DS Strange when he had assessed the damage done in his bedsit some weeks before, after the burglary. Besides his record player and radio set, the unknown perpetrators had deprived him of his ‘ _signed Rosalind Calloway LP_.’ 

Morse had puffed a tiny, derisive laugh without joy, Trewlove remembered. ‘Beside that, there was nothing worth taking,’ he had added.

And she had thought that it was a pitiable testimony for his life so far, to have so few worldly goods to claim for his own. It was as if he had chosen to jettison every baggage of his as disenchantments came his way, and to retain merely his brain and his records for company.

Considering the LP, Trewlove slipped the vinyl from the inner cover and made a show as if she were considering the pristine condition of the grooves, thinking hard.

Then she saw it, as she slipped the record back into its protective antistatic cover: a tiny marking on the lower right corner of the white cover. A small ‘ _EMorse_ ,’ written with the distinctive cursive which she had seen several times before on various police reports. It also punctuated, with angry exclamation marks, several of Fancy’s reports, the handwriting’s stern efficiency conveying the editor’s helpless fury at Fancy’s usual lack of attention to spelling.

Quickly, Trewlove laid the record flat carefully on the crate, and picked up a few LPs at random, all classical music or opera selections, most of them featuring Rosalind Calloway. She was met with the same hieroglyphic doodles written on the corner of the inner covers.

Her lips tightened in a thin line and she thought harder. _Should she leave the records there as evidence? Should she buy some of them and give them back to Morse?_

Trewlove knew from her father’s ramblings on how Calloway’s LPs were becoming an expensive collector’s item. After her sudden and dramatic demise, her record company had discontinued her recordings, unwilling to be stained by association by the murderess’ fall from grace. Only those already issued and still around in shops or collectors’ holdings were still available. As for her signed records, they were becoming more than a rarity, Rosalind Calloway never being one for endless signing sessions after her recitals. 

The young WPC was halfway making her decision when another element added up: stuck into a nearby case, the remain of a small board bearing a ‘Kilorran’ marking served as a price tag for the records stashed in it. She fingered it pensively before letting it drop back into the case.

‘Looking for anything in particular, Officer?’ a harsh male voice asked suddenly from behind, making her jump a little.

‘No, just looking, thank you,’ she replied smilingly to the West Indian seller who walked past her, carrying another crate of records.

On her left, a man exhaled with something like relief. She turned her head and noticed a middle-aged man focusing with a feverish gaze, not at her, but on the signed Rosalind Calloway record lying flat on the case.

Instinctively, she put a protective hand on it. ‘Sorry, sir, it’s not available. I’ve already set it aside.’

The faint sigh of disappointment of the avid collector wasn’t feigned. Not taking no for an answer, he tried to put her off by trying to convince her that she’d rather buy another mint copy without any inscription, but she politely stood her ground. Determinedly, she made a show of verifying the records before selecting what seemed to her the rarest Rosalind Calloway LPs from Morse’s former collection and leaving enough evidence in the seller’s crates.

Fortunately, she had enough with her to purchase the records, as the seller had obviously no knowledge of classical music.

How Morse would react at having to pay for his records twice, she couldn’t guess, but she knew he would refund her back to the last penny. But she could fairly presume what he’s say, if told that his most treasured LP had been snatched up under her eyes by another collector…

As Trewlove strolled away, her acquisitions stashed under her arm, she casually turned her head and made a quick mental note of the number plate of the blue van. ‘ _LLY 994 D_.’ She would remember that one easily.

  


* * *

  


As the sun slanted its feeble rays by the river, the shimmers of the late afternoon light were briefly broken up by the oars of the passing boat. The young men enthusiastically rowing in time paid no heed to the solitary seated figure in shirt sleeves hunched on the embankment. 

His morose eyes focused on the troubled water nearest the bank, George Fancy didn’t pay attention to them either, and only raised his eyes when Shirley Trewlove’s faintly ironical voice reached his ears. ‘Just so you know, I won't be diving in after you.’

He didn’t have any energy left for banter, so he merely said despondently, ‘Don't tempt me.’ 

He glanced up briefly at her, his brown eyes filled with a blend of despair and weariness, then resumed his obstinate gaze at the Isis. The river silently passed by, offering no comfort and no clues; merely another metaphor of Heraclitus’ advice—if Fancy had even heard him mentioned.

All attempts at levity suddenly left the WPC. ‘As bad as that?’

The glance she shot him was mischievous, and the supple ease with which she turned brought an appreciative glimmer in Fancy’s eyes, despite his low spirits. Then the consciousness of the dead end he had reached came back to his mind with a vengeance.

A mirthless smile stretched his mouth, and he spat, ‘Try sitting in a motor for half a day with two sarky Charlies who don't want you there and aren't too polite to let you know it.’ 

He added, his tone dripping faint astonishment, ‘They treat me like I'm bloody _invisible_.’

Trewlove felt like laughing. In all his tender years, the young DC must have found few indifferent looks. ‘Imagine,’ she commented, betraying her mounting irony.

Fancy didn’t quite get it. ‘I guess you get that a bit being in uniform?’

This time, her sarcasm showed through the quick glance she flashed at him. ‘Uniform, of course,’ she falsely agreed. ‘I wondered what it was,’ she added, her tone saying clearly what a twit she thought him. 

Fancy looked up at her. Primly standing beside him, not a hair out of place, her eyes shining with an icy sheen, she sparkled with an armoured self-possession which made him wince despite himself. 

Dropping this useless line of conversation, Trewlove sat down next to Fancy and got to the point.

‘You might want to take a look at Lloyd Collins,’ she tersely suggested. ‘West Indian, Jamaican possibly.’

She articulated her report unemotionally, as if she were doing it before a DI, without any hint of subservience or friendship; as if in a regular chain of command. However, the situation was well night different, and such was her professionalism that it took a few seconds for Fancy to process that her doing so was highly unusual.

The next information came to Fancy’s ears with the same clear, unemotional tone. ‘He's got a record stall in Brennan Street Market. Running an MOT failure of a van registered to 43B Hartford Road.’

‘And?’ he said a little too brusquely.

 _Not really connecting the dots_ , Trewlove thought, her face still impassive.

She went on. ‘You asked me to be on the lookout for Kilorran whiskey.’

Faint puzzlement spread out over Fancy’s face.

As concisely, Trewlove finished her recounting. ‘Collins is using a bit of cardboard from a case of the same on his stall. His prices are written on the back.’

She smiled wryly. ‘Too expensive, considering where they came from. Too cheap for what it’s worth.’

Fancy’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.

They were brown with little specks of gold when astonishment enlarged them, Trewlove noticed, and this ‘little boy lost’ look didn’t hurt his attractiveness one bit. For once, she didn’t castigate him for trying to ensnare her, as, focusing on her demonstration, the thought went unheeded through her brain.

A tentative smile blossomed on his face. ‘Well…I can't put that to Robbery!’

She looked more squarely at him. ‘Collins is also not above dealing in stolen goods.’ She smoothly stretched her legs before her, feeling the soles scrape against the pavement, and slyly noted Fancy’s interest. ‘There are some LPs on his stall from Morse's flat. He was burgled last autumn.’

Morse’s face as he stood disconsolately stooped in his devastated flat came back to haunt her. She added, ‘I bought several back for him. A customer was a little too interested in those.’

‘Ah!’ Fancy looked at her suspiciously. ‘You compromised evidence for Morse?’

As the outburst issued from his lips, he suddenly turned his head back towards the Isis, focusing instead on the rowing boat gamely going upstream rather than on her reaction.

Trewlowe’s supposed error seemed to upset him some, considering his not quite serene professional relationship with his senior officer. Well, the olive branch she was about to offer would probably take care of that… 

_Was there also a hint of jealousy? No doubt any suspected…consorting with officers would earn Fancy’s disapproval…_ She swallowed a tiny smile. In Fancy’s book, flirting with a DC might be her only acceptable move. Himself, specifically. 

She hastened to reassure him. ‘No. There are enough left at Collins’ stall,’ she said quietly.

Seeing Fancy’s renewed puzzlement, Trewlove explained. ‘Markings on the records inner cover. It will make identification easier.’

Suddenly, a smile that finally reached his eyes burst through. ‘A collar like that, you can make a name for yourself.’ His smile widened, taking a teasing turn. ‘So why tell me?’

She couldn’t help answering him with a smile of her own, but mischief and a hint of something else were the main ingredients.

‘Because I'm all heart!’ she finally dropped, throwing her head back and slanting it towards the sun. ‘You're the detective. I'm just a uniform, remember?’

She nimbly got up, and passing by him, threw him a glance that defied him to follow her.

When she disappeared from his line of view, Fancy’s shoulders slumped once more. But this time, it was with the beginning of a plan. He bent eagerly forward, focusing on the river with renewed energy, his mind picking and discarding several possibilities.

_Couldn’t he contact the fella, saying that he had to keep the bar stocked—for a—a party, at one of the Colleges? He could look the part._

The more he played the scene in his mind, the more brilliant it seemed to him.

  


* * *

  


As soon as the reverberation of the front door slamming behind him quietened, Morse recognised the far off comments of the turf commentators blaring on the box for what they were.

 _Turf_. Dear God. How he _hated_ turf!

It brought vividly to mind Cyril’s endless betting, his endless losses of tin he couldn’t afford to do without, Gwen’s endless recriminations, the myriad ways she impressed her displeasure on the youth he had been and the debts it took him months to pay back. Whoever said teenage years were among the best of one’s life obviously didn’t have to spend them at the Morses’.

The view that greeted him when he reached the doorway to the kitchen was enough to make him lose whatever appetite he felt. Morse froze, utterly nonplussed, gaunt frame quivering with displeasure.

Seated before the kitchen table and slumped in front of Strange, Fancy was munching energetically on his dinner, totally engrossed on the galloping horses shown on the telly set, his forgotten fork half-raised towards his mouth. Strange was shovelling food faster than his guest, peeping at the riders between mouthfuls, his brow creasing as they neared the finishing point.

When he realised that Morse was standing near the door, Strange announced, ‘I stopped by the Chinese,’ as if the smells weren’t enough to broadcast the source of their culinary delights.

‘So I see,’ replied Morse, his nose scrunching with faint disgust.

To add insult to injury, at that very minute, Fancy darted a glance above his shoulder, looking at his Governor as if complimenting him for a smashing deduction. Morse’s irritation jumped sky-high.

‘Plenty if you want a bowlful,’ offered Strange. ‘Sweet and sour pork. Chicken chop suey. Beef with black beans. Spring rolls. Egg fried rice.’

At each dish offering, Morse’s queasiness rose higher. He gestured vaguely with the file he twisted in his hands. ‘I'll be fine with a drink, thanks.’

Determinedly not responding to Strange’s faintly reproaching look, Morse focused on the countertop, and, to his surprise, didn’t find his expected treat. His brow creased, a sure sign that his irritation was rising up at a gallop.

‘I had a bottle of Radford’s,’ he pointed out.

Chewing with determination, Strange directed, ‘In the fridge.’

‘In the fridge?’ yelped Morse. The left corner of his mouth crinkled resolutely down. ‘It's bitter, not lager.’

Safely hidden from his view, Fancy risked a tiny smile, certain that Strange wouldn’t betray him. The sergeant raised his eyes to the sky, betraying an unusual annoyance, while Morse opened the fridge door. With brisk, economical gestures, he found his bottle of beer, then a bottle opener and a glass.

The too cold alcohol slid into his throat. _Unpleasantly fresh, but not as icy as he feared. Strange must have filed it away when he came back tonight, then… A small mercy, the first in a wasted day_.

His mind somewhat relieved, Morse answered Strange’s queries about his case less gruffly than the latter expected. Feeling more agreeable by the minute as his beer went down, he even repaid his housemate’s courtesy with questions about the hijack case.

To his openly-expressed surprise, it was Fancy who replied that he had made some progress at last.

‘There might be a connection to a fella on the market. Lloyd Collins. Jamaican.’ The younger man shook his head deprecatingly. ‘But it's early days. I don't want to jump the gun.’

In his voice, a gleeful note sparked Morse’s fleeting interest. Fancy directed an intent look at him, but it was gone so fast that Morse thought he had imagined it. 

Fancy went back to his rice; Morse took another swallow of his beer, thinking that Fancy wouldn’t jump the gun, if he knew what was good for him.

Still, he’d have to keep an eye on him.

Another swig didn’t make him swallow the metaphorical pill.

At least, he had Miss Thursday’s flat warming to look forwards to.

  


* * *

  


Trewlove slipped the five Rosalind Calloway LPs under two stacks of files on Morse’s desk, next to his typewriter, taking care not to place them in plain view where they would draw unwelcome attention. She had waited for a moment where the room was empty to do this, so a sudden footstep ringing in her ears made her peek over her shoulder with a deer-in-headlight startled look.

Entering the office at this very minute, Strange looked up from the file he was perusing, frowned at her furtive movement, and saw the new addition to his colleague’s tidy corner.

‘What’s this, Shirl?’

She exhaled in relief when she realised who the newcomer was. ‘Morse’s LPs. I found some in Brennan Street Market yesterday. Plenty of them left where they came from.’

‘Morse’s?’

She nodded. ‘No chance of error,’ she said, retrieving the signed LP then proffering it under his nose.

Strange _humph_ ed. ‘Sure is. Shirl, I hope you know what you’re doing.’

She took care of putting the record protectively back between two others, before answering, Oh, I am. There were at least fifteen of his LPs in Lloyd Collins’ stall. Enough to pin “receiving” on him again.’

‘Good job, Shirl.’ Strange sat down at his desk. ‘Well, may I have the results on the vehicle tracks from the Waddington Junction hijack?’

She nodded, and came back some minutes later, offering a file. ‘There you are.’ She drew back a little, and added searchingly, resting her hands uncertainly on Strange’s desk, ‘Said you were to be on the lookout for a van with one odd tyre on the rear offside.’

‘Cheers, Shirl,’ replied Strange, already browsing through the photographs.

Trewlove turned around, preparing to exit the room. She had paved the way enough for Fancy. If he played his cards right, he might even impress Morse.

However, she had lingered too much in the office. DI Box was now standing in the entrance—obstructing it, rather. Hands in pocket, he leaned on the door in a parody of ease, bristling with tension. It echoed in his voice, as he snapped in her direction, ‘Hey! There you are.’

‘Sir?’ Trewlove said respectfully, all her senses on the alert.

Her outward docility wasn’t enough to deflect Box’s overt rage. He advanced on her leisurely, his steps rendered more ominous by the sudden appearance of his shadow, DS Dawson, at his back. Strange raised his eyes from the file, his massive frame bracing against he knew not yet what.

‘Don't bloody “sir” me,’ Box warned. ‘I want a word with you, girlie.’

‘What's this?’ In the guise of Strange’s, the voice of reason tried valiantly to butt in. It was ruthlessly rebuffed by Box with a sneering ‘As you were, tubby. This is the one I want.’

Box took two more steps into the room and Trewlove was hard pressed not to recoil before him. She raised her chin a tad higher.

‘Who do you think you are? Some sort of detective?’ he said, as Strange slowly got up, his bafflement turning into an intent look. ‘Throwing out your little theories.’

However, as Box advanced relentlessly on her, Trewlove had no choice than to back down physically before his barrage of insults. ‘I'll tell you what you are.’ A pause. ‘A woodentop. A plonk.’ Another pause, dripping with contempt. ‘A person of limited or no knowledge.’

Swallowing hard, head still raised high, Trewlove fought back, ‘I know enough not to park on double yellows.’

Her spunk didn’t please Box one bit. ‘Keep your tits out of my operation,’ he sneered. ‘Got it?’

From the corner of her eyes, far off, Trewlove saw Fancy coming behind the Robbery men. He strolled as leisurely as Box did, hands folded in his pockets, but the DC’s smooth gait was laced with enough stiffness to send strident alarm bells ringing in her head. _For God’s sake, someone keep the White Knight up on his steed!_ she thought. If he joins the row…

Resolutely, Trewlove tightened her lips and swallowed her instinctive retort, as it would push Fancy into reckless action.

Box mistook the stretching of her mouth. ‘There. You can run along now and have a little cry.’

His careless, scorning turn of the head finally urged her to reply with a little toss of her head. ‘I'm not the crying sort.’

‘Oh, I know your sort,’ Box sniggered, doing a slow once-over of Trewlove’s body, his eyes lingering on her feminine assets, as his acolyte chortled. ‘Good for two things. One of ’em typing.’

The only answer opened to the WPC was very tempting and she seized it with alacrity, filling it also with double entendre, ‘I believe you're unfit for duty through drink, sir,’ before she mock commiserated with a ‘Go home and sleep it off’ even more damning.

‘You mouthy little—’ Box began. 

But he never specified his intended invective or even completed his gesture, as several things happened at once.

Box raised his right fist, preparing to slam it frontward, but before it landed on his intended target, Fancy threw himself at him and grabbed that wrist, twisting Box’s arm back against his back; while Strange—who had purposely sneaked near the WPC—whisked the thunderstruck young woman away, out of range of the now twice infuriated Box.

Morse, who had entered the office through the other side just in time to hear Trewlove’s retort, immediately leaped into misguided action. Taking advantage of the opening created by Strange, he instinctively grappled Box, who had just managed to escape Fancy’s hold.

Without hesitation, Box cannoned into Morse, latching onto his shoulders. With irresistible momentum, he spun Morse around, his greater weight and ruthlessness distinct advantages against his hapless assailant.

In the blink of an eye, Morse was slammed violently onto the corner of his own desk, his only advantage—surprise—dissolving as he made sure that Trewlove was safely out of the arena. His last minute chivalrous glimpse was his downfall, as Box pinned him down effortlessly as if he had been a child. The blow brought a wave of pain in the small of Morse’s back, and he couldn’t help crying out loud.

So seeing, Box pressed harder, and Morse felt the wedge of the desk imprint itself deeper into his skin. The carriage of his typewriter brushed his shoulder blades and he pushed back harder against Box’s grip, feeling it giving way a little. Morse squirmed with more energy, trying to dislodge Box, but to no avail. Under the shoves to the desk, the typewriter was pushed sideways and fell to the floor with a loud clatter, propelling some of Morse’s files and miscellaneous office supplies onto the same journey, as he vainly tried to push away Box’s hands from his shoulders, his hands locked onto the man’s arms.

‘Oh, no!’ Trewlove exclaimed.

She slipped out of Strange’s protective hands, and sprang towards the desk. But instead of coming to Morse’s aid as Strange half expected her to do, she pulled the half-hidden LPs from under the imperilled files, overturned pencils holder, memo pads, and paper clips, and placed them safely away on a file cabinet.

His mouth hanging comically half-open and befuddlement written all over his face, Fancy stayed put, further held in check by Dawson’s menacing glare.

So the hands which tore out Box’s weight from Morse were not his, but Thursday’s. Pulling him off his bemused Sergeant, he slammed Box against the nearest wall, growling, ‘Try that again.’

What he would have done after that preliminary word of advice was left to the onlookers’ imagination, as Bright’s voice held them all in thrall with a clear cut, precise query, ‘What's the meaning of this?’

Swift as lightning, Thursday released Box, the glint in his eyes an expressive answer to the question of his superior.

Freed from these unrelenting hands, Box straightened his collar, his eyes weighing Thursday with a reluctant, grudging respect. He took his time, hastily flattening the wrinkles in his shirt, then replied, ‘Just giving the WPC a few words of advice, sir.’

The ‘sir’ was dropped carelessly, as if only second thoughts had judged it necessary.

Still rubbing the small of his back, Morse snorted audibly, and Box’s scowl came to rest on him with all its previous derision. His former opponent met it glare for glare, as Dawson carefully placed himself, as unobtrusively as he could, behind his chosen leader.

 _Thinking you’re John Wayne?_ Morse sneered internally, his glance betraying his open contempt.

As he was about to proffer an additional explanation, Strange beat him to it, spitting, ‘It was a bit more than that.’

Morse shook his head in violent denial, but his loosened collar enlightened him of his less than pristine state. Automatically, his hands went to his tie and adjusted it, as Box expressed obviously false excuses. He didn’t even try to make them ring true, as the amused glint in his eyes and his thinly disguised snicker showed.

Nor were the others decided to accept them. Trewlove looked elsewhere but at him. Strange took a step forward with the nearest thing close to open rage that Morse had ever seen him display. As for the latter, he openly disdained the explanation, focusing on Thursday’s anger, and slowly getting closer to his elder, as if to ward him off the mistake he had made.

The DCI pulsated with anger, the hands clenching into fists by his side held in check with an obvious reluctance. Another minute and he would resume what Bright’s intervention had interrupted.

Again, Bright’s dry tones prevented another escalation of violence. ‘A reprimand is one thing. Humiliating junior ranks in front of senior officers is quite another.’

Box’s face expressed plainly for all to see what he thought of such lenient maxims. With a curt gesture, Bright invited Box to precede him into his office.

Their footsteps receded into the silence then Bright’s office door closed with a loud bang.

Left to their own devices, the players of the little drama slumped like puppets whose puppeteers had cut their strings.

Cautiously, Fancy and Dawson, in agreement for once, ambled out, leaving the battlefield to the main players. After a last visual check on Morse, Thursday went back to his office, still shivering with rage.

‘Alright, Shirl?’ asked Strange. 

‘Yes—yes. Thanks to you.’ With a sweeping glance, she included Morse in her gratitude.

He nodded curtly, acknowledging her thanks, and got closer to his desk to survey the damage. Wordlessly, Morse bent and began to gather scattered files, pencil sharpener, pencils and pens, carelessly throwing into the bin those who had not survived the fall, and stacking papers back on the desk.

Trewlove checked Morse’s typewriter lying wrecked on the floor, straightening a few type bars which had been torn when it fell. ‘It’ll do,’ she said, placing it back on the desk, ‘but you’ll have to type it again,’ she added, showing Morse the half-torn sheet hanging from the carriage. 

‘Mmm’ was his only reply. He froze suddenly, his eyes narrowing in surprise, and went to the file cabinet nearest to his desk, frowning. ‘What’s this?’

 _The moment of truth_ , thought Trewlove. ‘You can see for yourself,’ was all that she said.

‘Yes. But—how?’ Morse pressed on disbelievingly, holding his prized signed Calloway LP with reverent hands. He raised it before him, revelling in the sight of it for a second before placing it carefully on his desk and absently tracing the soprano’s face with his forefinger. 

‘Chance, that’s all. I happened to spot it,’ Trewlove explained.

‘And…’

‘Shirl bought those back for you,’ Strange said.

Morse’s head turned sharply. ‘Where?’ he said savagely. ‘Where did you find them?’

He sounded as if he would take off at any minute and confront the fella who had torn them from him in the first place. _A very bad idea_ , thought Strange, who was observing them both. _Stupid, even, when one remembered the results of his last brawl_.

 _Ungrateful bloke, Morse_ , was his additional thought. _No thank you, no nothing._

‘One could spend 25 years building up a collection,’ lamented Morse. ‘Some of these LPs, they’re irreplaceable, even if they don’t have any real monetary value. Even more so with 78rpms.’

‘I know,’ Trewlove said. ‘My father’s a record collector, too. But Jazz’s more his cup of tea.’ An affirmation which wasn’t entirely a lie when she reflected on it.

‘Ah.’ Morse raised his eyes for a second then went back to checking his records lovingly. He heaved a deep breath. ‘They’re alright.’ 

A tiny smile graced his face before being replaced by some belated embarrassment. He looked squarely at Trewlove, his eyes strikingly blue against the paleness of his skin and for once, without aloofness. ‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’

‘You’re welcome’ she replied, and to dispel the mood, told him how much he owed her for her repurchase.

Such was his joy to recover some of his lost treasures that he didn’t even flinch. Or insist to know where they came from. For the time being.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this fic a year ago, and it stayed a long time in my hard drive.  
>   
> Many thanks for reading! As always, all comments are gratefully received!  
> 


	2. Chapter 2

‘ _Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore, Non feci mai male ad anima viva!_ ’ (I lived for art, I lived for love, I never harmed a living soul!)

Tosca’s most famous aria floated around Morse, weaving a spell around him. But a spell whose potency had now lost much of its charms, despite his eagerness to listen to the voice he had thought vanished in the mists of his memories, as buying another recording had proved near impossible.

_Why?_ he asked himself, unable to shake his unease. Pondering that unwelcome mystery, he settled more comfortably in the armchair, crossing his legs and slipping a pillow beneath his back to ease the sore. _Was it that he could no longer separate the dead woman who sang so persuasively from the cold-blooded murderess planning in such punctilious details the demise of two innocent people? Had he invested in her all the qualities and frailties of the opera heroines she sang so beautifully?_

He shook his head with derision at his train of thoughts, and rotated the bottle of lager between his fingers. The diffused light of a nearby lamp reflected on the glass, lightening its colour and making it glint with the same dark copper as Morse’s hair.

At arm’s reach, Rosalind Calloway’s LP sleeve was propped on the turntable side, her liquid brown eyes seemingly watching him with a faintly interrogative expression. He returned her gaze but the printed lips went on smiling, their Mona Lisa smile an enigma whose key would escape his scrutiny forever. With an involuntary sigh, Morse gazed away from that ethereal loveliness, now marred in his mind’s eyes with the flabbergasted accusation stamped on Mrs. Stromming’s face as he had escorted her from the stage to the care of the coppers waiting for her in the wings. After that last look, she had refused to meet his eyes, and it still stung, years later.

If he had been guilty of blending the fictional opera singer Floria Tosca with her flesh and blood performer, it was a common enough mistake, yet an enduring one, he mused. Most opera enthusiasts somehow infused the qualities of their roles onto the singers. In real life, few tenors were as heroic as the characters they portrayed; few sopranos, as lovely and endearingly helpless. But the illusion still clung to them, nurtured by starry-eyed aficionados.

There was nothing pure, soft or passive about Rosalind Calloway. There wasn’t either in Floria Tosca, if one reflected on it. Both women were consummate musicians, and both ended up murderesses, the woman even more cunning than her fictional avatar.

‘ _Vissi d'arte_ ,’ Floria Tosca’s aria of despair and longing for a serene past, would be followed by the frantic murdering of Scarpia who had entrapped her: her only escape from her giving herself to the Roman Chief of Police. The price Tosca had to pay for the freedom of Mario Cavaradossi, her lover and Scarpia’s political prisoner, about to be executed. Her stabbing Scarpia after agreeing to the bargain was as much an impulsive act as a desperate bid to free the man she loved and to gain both their freedom. Alas, as in many nineteenth century operas, the lovers were doomed: Cavaradossi’s execution wasn’t a sham one and Tosca would commit suicide when she’d realize he had really been shot.

_Rosalind Calloway committed suicide, too. And she also fought for her love_.

Morse’s nape fell back on the back rest of his armchair. He closed his eyes, the darkness beneath his lids a makeshift backdrop for a scene of horror he had never managed to entirely banish from his mind.

_Her slack, supple body under his frantic hands; her rolling head; her unseeing, unblinking eyes, moisture still falling from their corners. And that pale red gaping mouth, from which strings of notes would never issue ever again. Neither would her lies and dissembling_.

_Her singing breath had saved his life. His could not redeem hers_.

How his—his _heroine_ had played him! Using his heart, his nerves, his soul, his ears, his desire, to further her own agenda. Seeing through his infatuation—his stupid, ingenuous, ludicrous love for her—his wretched memories of the grey, cold, unforgiving limbo of years spent with Cyril and Gwen, made barely bearable by the beauty she embodied.

Morse snorted disbelievingly. He had unwittingly given her all the snares—with string to spare!—to trap him in her lies; to blind him with the aura of her public persona; to persuade him that her life as a Don’s wife—a happy, fulfilled life—was the reality, and not another theatrical illusion…

Was it any wonder, then, that the spell of her performance fell now short, the arrows falling back to the ground, pulled down by reality before they reached his heart? Would he ever be able to guide them back to him—a willing quarry to their piercing tips?

Had the intervening weeks—weeks where the lure of her voice was suddenly missing—brought such a change in his perceptions?

This aria of sorrow and loss, how it had blinded him to her reality! For she was more a Tosca than a Violetta Valery—a Traviata—her other signature role. Rosalind Calloway had pursued her own ends with a will of steel, devising without flinching the method of her final curtain call…

Tosca fell willingly to her death from the parapet of the Castel Sant’Angelo. He, Morse, had been falling for a long time into the mesmerising beauty of Miss Calloway’s voice—for a minute, he had also fallen for the woman, and he cringed, remembering that aborted kiss she had so gracefully avoided. But, in those depths—like Tosca finally had when she had plummeted to the ground—, he had found merely a terrifying emptiness, something akin to death.

_For wasn’t the defeat of the heart far worse than bodily demise?_

Morse’s fingers tightened wish a shudder on the rotund glass. Strained tendons recalled the bottle to him and he put it down, with shaking fingers, onto the armrest, hearing the next aria without really listening to it.

Rosalind Calloway’s ageless voice ended Violetta’s ‘ _Sempre libera_ ’ with a soaring flourish: Traviata was relishing her freedom and a last stunning appoggiatura, scorning the madness of love. _Poveretta!_ (Poor thing!) She would repent of it soon enough.

_Nasca il giorno, o il giorno muoia_ , (As each day dawns, or as the day dies,)  
 _sempre lieta ne’ ritrovi_ , (Always gay, I turn)  
 _a diletti sempre nuovi_ (to the always renewed delights)  
 _dee volare il mio pensier_ … (which make my spirit soar.)

With a detached, almost blasé restraint, Morse’s lips tightened. The stunning, penultimate E-flat sounded shallow now to his critical ears. Far from the previous joyous release of the ending coloraturas, now it merely suggested egotistical onanism to him, not the previous exhilarating quest for pleasure and riches that came from a courtesan’s life.

_Had he so projected his own feelings onto Rosalind Calloway’s singing, instead of listening to it? Had she been so tainted from the start, her inner corruption masked by the beauty of her eyes, the sensitivity of her mouth, the glory of her musical gifts? Or had it crept on surreptitiously, each day bringing on more rot, like his own drinking as it grew on?_

The music stopped. In the tiny lapse of silence heralding the next track—and the next miseries of various opera heroines—, Morse made out the far away sound of the telly. Some sort of commercial, obviously. Strange must still be downstairs, then, watching God knew what.

‘ _Addio, del passato_ ’ was the following aria. A farewell, to love, to life, to…hope, yet hoping despite despair to be welcomed in the After-life.

Paradise, Morse knew first hand, didn’t exist. Neither did Shangri-la, Arcadia or heavenly kingdoms. Not on this plane, definitely; and not on the other, presumably. Life had soon cured him of his childish hopes; helplessly watching his mother waste away, then praying that she’d be spared had put a final stop to all this nonsense. 

He had found other opiates: literature, art, music, opera. Beer. The pleasures of the mind, the relishes of the body. But what he shared with Alices and Carols was a mutual assuaging of the flesh, no more. 

Unbeknownst to him, the curves of his lips turned wistful, and he closed his eyes once more, a more curvaceous figure taking the lead in the theatre of his mind.

Despite all his hardening cynicism, he had searched for a woman who might retain some spark of innocence, of freshness, of…honesty.

A sprightly eagerness. A pristine heart within a fresh, curious mind and a lively intelligence.

A fresh start. A wellspring where he could cleanse away the dirtiness and weariness of his life.

Thus he had fallen for a girl who had no outstanding, aristocratic beauty—no Wendy, she—nor exceptional intellectual brilliance or cultured tastes. Deceptively common was she, for ‘ _she walked in beauty, like the night_ ’, with a dancing energy and firm purpose disguised by her mischievous softness.

‘ _And all that’s best of dark and bright met in her aspect and her eyes_ ’.

Miss Thursday. _Joan_ , as he had never dared to call her aloud.

She was fragile, too, despite her determination. He couldn’t shake the image of her form delineated by the sheets of the hospital bed. So still, so unmoving that she might as well have been a carved-out figure for a marble recumbent effigy. Her brow had felt as cold under his lips, and the princess had not awoken from her cursed sleep.

Although being so different from the singing goddesses he admired from afar, the fictional figures that had populated his dreams, it was Miss Thursday whom he desired. Joan who haunted his nights and fed his hopes for a shared future.

She was real, for one thing. And her frailty was reassuring in a way. Surely, she wouldn’t look too askance at him, now that she had tasted the pitfalls of being human? That tie between them, forged in common plight and fear; that hard-wearing, silken bond, would it finally knot them together?

Surely it meant something, this insistence of hers? Her intent, searching look as she told him ‘don't forget tomorrow night—flat warming?’

If she breached the chasm between them and beckoned to him, he would move forwards, too.

At the risk of falling again.

A tremor shook him as it possessed his imagination.

As if he were still standing on that fateful rooftop, his silhouette framed between golden-tipped flame-vase finial and threatening darkness, he felt the pull of the earth threatening his balance, angling him towards free-fall and oblivion, and his heartbeat sped up. At the time, he had gone home, his ears still full of Gull’s rants, trying to fill them with his Governor’s advice.

And he had put on ‘his best record’. The very one he was listening to.

But the darkness still pressed on, even if Rosalind Calloway’s honey voice lilted, full of buoyant expectation for ‘the beautiful day’ that wouldn’t come ever again, heralding the return of love. Either for Madame Butterfly or for her.

The rim of the bottle felt ice cold as Morse brought it to his lips.

Downstairs, Jim Strange sighed for the umpteenth time and wondered when this caterwauling would stop at last.

  


* * *

  


_A fresh start. Indeed, Miss Thursday would be getting a fresh start_.

Morse’s mouth twisted in a quick spasm, as bile rose threateningly in his throat. Nonetheless a sham smile stayed stuck on his face as he forced his way among a cluster of Joan Thursday’s guests and until he stood outside, the fresh night air a welcome relief on his flushed face.

_Without him, that is_.

He paused on the front steps of the house, shouldering into his coat with a jerk.

Twilight was slowing fading into dusk, and the street lights were spreading into their full glow. The sunset’s soft pinks, which had given Miss Thursday’s face such an infuriating softness even as she had carelessly trampled his hopes, caressed the white façades lining the street.

It was empty, safe for a couple standing beneath the nearest lamppost, a few feet away. As Morse shoved his hands in his pockets, the young woman slapped the man with an efficient economy of gesture. His attention caught by the unexpected clatter, Morse turned his head towards them, in time to see the man step back in anger. 

Morse hastened his stride, just in case the girl needed some assistance. But she stayed put, unfazed, muttering with anger, ‘ _Ce connard a pris mes allumettes_. (This asshole kept my matches.)’

Nothing to involve himself with, then.

Yet, as he passed her by, she asked with a curiously smooth noticeable gesture of her hand, stopping his progress in mid-stride, ‘Do you have a light?’

Morse stopped. Perplexed blue eyes met bold chocolate ones. They bluntly pierced him, with a direct, swift, unashamed appraisal that made him reappraise her in his turn.

There was nothing insecure or coy in the French girl’s assessment, just a frank enjoyment of the present, and of herself. Silently, she raised the hand holding her cigarette, in an inquiring intimation. 

Morse’s hand found his lighter—always a commodity to have, as smoking often helped witnesses to unwind—and he offered her the light she craved. She closed her eyes with naked delight, putting the cigarette at her lips. 

The snapping closed of his lighter woke him from his reverie, as the little flame illuminated a profile noted not for its beauty but for its arresting liveliness. In the twilight, her sparrow-like face, with its little flat nose, high cheekbones and too wide mouth, sparkled with playfulness and an unsaid question which kindled something wild in Morse’s gut. 

The girl tilted her head back, dragging sensuously on her cigarette, and said, ‘Thank you’ with the same French accent. Abruptly, her smile held promises as seductive as the questions she didn’t utter previously.

But Morse understood her perfectly.

Morse’s lighter found its way back into his pocket, the girl’s eyes focusing not on his hands but on his lips.

His smile stretched slowly, sensuously, mirroring hers. It reached their eyes, as they went away together, walking in the same pace, her navy jacket brushing against his beige coat.

It was exquisite to be wanted, for a change.

  


* * *

  


It was morning when Morse walked home, bone tired from that delicious fatigue which came from a night spent in other arms than Morpheus’. Walking in the streets, he remembered their disjointed talk at the _White Horse_ then their adjoining in Claudine’s bedsit—for Claudine was her name.

How many chances did he have to meet the photo journalist out of pure hazard? He didn’t know. But he relished the fierce irony of having been pulled by the very same ‘ _pretty—and French_ ’ girl with whom Miss Thursday had tried to match him.

A pungent irony of fate even more delicious when Claudine told him that, at the last moment, she had reneged on her promise to go to a flat warming. ‘She wanted me to hitch me with some fella. Probably a dead bore, so I went the hell out of here before I even reached the door!’ she had confessed with a modicum of chortling indignation.

So what else could he do than embrace Fortune’s jest fully and go along with it—and the girl, right where she wanted him, in her bed? And a welcoming bed it had been…

When he reached his present abode, dawn was already getting old, replaced by a chilly morning.

As Morse turned away from the peg on which he had hung his coat, he surprised Strange’s faintly jealous stare. ‘Filling out his dance card’, as the other Sergeant had called it, couldn’t go unnoticed for that long when house sharing. 

‘Good night?’ asked Strange, with a slight sardonic note.

Morse was spared having to answer as the phone rang with a shrill demand. He picked up the receiver. On the other side of the line, Fancy’s voice announced tensely, ‘It's George. The lorry hijack. That market trader came through. He's gonna let me have four cases of Kilorran whisky for 20 nicker.’

The news chased any remaining fogginess from Morse’s brain. ‘Where are you picking it up?’

‘Lockup on Pike Street.’

‘Ten minutes?’

‘Okay.’

Morse slammed the receiver down and his eyes met Strange’s, who was hovering not far away.

‘Pike Street. Ten minutes.’

‘Alright.’

Hurriedly, both men grabbed their coats.

But they were already too late.

Fancy’s panicky ‘Ambulance! Ambulance!’ reached Morse’s ears as soon as the Jag turned into the parking lot. He pressed his feet on the gas pedal and brought it to a hurried stop near the blue van they had been on the lookout for.

He exited the car running; just behind him, Thursday mirrored his movement, leaping from the passenger seat. Still standing before one of the lockup storage stalls, Fancy beckoned to them and then rushed into the opened storage area. 

On the concrete floor of a lockup, the prone shape of Lloyd Collins made an ugly coloured spot, his yellow and blue stripped shirt a stark contrast with the greyness of his concrete backdrop; the red stripes, a grisly reminder of the blood issuing from the corner of his mouth and his nose.

Raising the flap door to let daylight in, Morse moved forward and crouched next to the injured man. ‘Who did this?’

Collins’ half-closed eyes opened slightly wider and settled on him with a nebulous focus. Seeing that he was losing his attention, Morse repeated with more urgency, ‘Who did this?’

‘Cromwell Ames’ was the raspy answer. The man’s belly shook with his haphazard breathing.

All of a sudden, there was an awful gurgling, and the Jamaican’s head rolled on the side before freezing, its unseeing eyes fixing some horror Morse could not be expected to see. 

At his back, Fancy looked at Thursday, a question in his eyes that was answered soon enough by Thursday’s grim face and Morse’s hopeless movement: slipping his fingers around Collins’ neck and feeling for his pulse, it was soon apparent that there was none. Morse withdrew his arm slowly, and Fancy’s lowered eyes saw what the Sergeant had just noticed: a headless black cockerel, its legs ominously stiffened.

The young DC’s guilt wasn’t even relieved by Thursday’s later matter-of-fact explanation, ‘Somebody probably saw him talking to you. Took him for a nark’, and Trewlove’s heart went out to him. They were standing near the blue van, while a stretcher bearing the unfortunate Collins cautiously crossed the empty space before them.

‘Anything on this Cromwell Ames?’ asked Strange.

‘Nothing on file according to the Information Room. But the deceased has a fair bit of form. Receiving mostly,’ explained Trewlove.

Doctor DeBryn moved closer and that line of enquiry was dropped as he told them that the info about ‘the killer blow’ would be forthcoming at two o'clock. The scene he left to their imaginings wasn’t a comfortable one.

Morse broke the silence surrounding his departing footsteps with a nod towards the van. ‘There's no Kilorran on board. But the rear offside tyre is a mismatch.’

‘Which puts it at the Waddington Junction hijack,’ went on Trewlove, thankful for a change of topic despite her poise.

They got busy investigating the lockups. Most were empty except for Collins’ one, full to bursting with various goods. Orphaned drawers disclosed coffee makers and lampshades, lamp bases, toolkits and brass candlesticks. Shelves held books and records. A trestle supported a brand-new sewing machine, various clocks and delicately engraved crystal decanters. Trinkets and curio overflowed from crates, but instead, Thursday’s eyes followed Morse’s cautious gestures while he inserted the dead bird in an evidence bag, with exaggerated delicacy and not a little disgust.

He ventured at last, ‘What do you think the bird's about?’

Folding the hanky he had used to hold the dead bird, Morse replied, ‘I know what it looks like, but I hope I'm wrong.’ He raised troubled eyes to the older man. ‘The black cockerel is a pretty potent voodoo symbol.’ 

Thursday kept it mundane, ‘That rules out Eddie Nero.’

Morse huffed a sigh, his attention diverted by Fancy issuing from the storage area, carrying a crate. ‘Didn't we have a consignment of toasters take a walk off Burridges’ loading bay last month?’ he asked.

‘It’s like Ali Baba's cave,’ muttered Thursday. He crouched suddenly, picking up a broken bottle still sporting its label. ‘Kilorran.’

‘Someone’s got a sweet tooth,’ remarked Trewlove, opening a box and holding out for their inspection a pack of Gidbury’s delicacies.

‘There was a case of that on Hobbs’ manifest. Bound for Richardson’s,’ said Strange.

Fancy divested himself of another crate, settling it near the others. There was now a row of similar ones holding groceries and tin cans near the entrance of the lockup. ‘Plenty of crates back there,’ he gestured. ‘All sorts. Food, antiques; an entire library, even.’

Following the wave of Fancy’s arm, Morse entered farther into the lockup. A confusing mess of items met his puzzled eyes. There was no apparent order or filing method to find the stolen goods. Sorting out the lawful owners of the miscellaneous objects would take time and effort, but still, Morse didn't begrudge them that. In addition to his own picky sense of justice, he knew first-hand what it felt to have a prized possession torn away from one. _Loss, the story of his life_.

The records stored in several crates lining the walls drew his scrutiny, and Morse turned his eyes away with a conscious effort. They flitted over the orphaned goods when something red attracted his notice. He came closer and saw a pair of shoes. They looked brand new. Stuck on its soles, a label proclaimed proudly its place of provenance, _Alice’s Marmalade Cat_. His brow creased with indecision.

_Could they be Frances Porter’s shoes? Mercer left her at the roundabout. May she have thumbed a lift to Kings Oak Station from Hobbs? So, upset from her row with Mercer, she gets out of Hobbs' lorry and he’s on his way before she realises she’s left them behind. Or she…_

Turning absently the shoes in his hands, Morse focused on their bright redness as if they could tell him what had gone on. _Maybe…_

His train of thought was cut off by Fancy’s voice, close to his ear. ‘Ain’t it yours?’

In his hand was a private recording of ‘ _Die Zauberflöte_ ’ conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The cream and beige label advertised proudly on the black boxset ‘Rare Opera Editions,’ but this outward show of quality didn’t appease Morse.

‘How did you know?’ Morse snapped at him. ‘You weren’t even in Oxford then!’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Taken aback, Fancy took a step back, stammering, ‘I—I… People talked.’

‘You’d better focus on the case!’

Morse placed the red shoes back on the trestle and scowled at Strange who had hastened inside to see what the ruckus was all about, venting, ‘Talk about adding insult to injury. That's the worst recording of “ _The Magic Flute_ ” ever made!’

He tore the record set from Fancy’s hand, considering it with some acrimony. ‘I wouldn’t allow it in my house!’ he added, before putting it, none to gently, next to the pair of shoes.

‘He meant well, matey,’ Strange said in a placating voice. With a slight nod, he sent Fancy on his way. The young man was too happy to obey. 

‘Maybe, but does he pause to think? No, he doesn’t.’

‘Some of your stuff’s probably in there. Records, more like. He wanted to help.’

Morse’s baffled gaze prompted him to elaborate. ‘It was Collins who sold your records to Shirley.’

‘Did he?’ Swiftly, Morse reached out behind the table where stashed crates full of records were, and browsed through them. A minute later, a sample of LPs had joined Toscanini’s ‘ _Magic Flute_ ’ before him.

Deftly, Morse slipped an inner cover out of the records sleeve, and pointed to the corner. ‘See? I’ve labelled all my records.’

‘Pencil markings?’

‘You can’t imagine that I would damage them?’ Dismay was back in Morse’s voice, and Strange understood that he had lost this battle.

He’d have to find a way to show Fancy off to advantage.

Despite some of his blunders, the young DC was good police material. Not imaginative, no! Or prone to flashes of brilliance, but he could be moulded into a good officer, if he could be steered on a right course… _Yeah, maybe he could suggest something to Thursday_ … Morse was way too harsh to the fella.

At his side, a morose Morse was muttering something about evidence lockers and the time it would take him before being allowed to bring back home part of his collection.

With a pang, Strange was hit with a less than happy thought: he was in for more evenings of that bloody hooting.

Unless Morse had more sleepovers in the future… Now, _that_ was a happy prospective.

  


* * *

  


As he had been prepared to get out of her bed definitively, out of her house, out of her life, and to offer his thanks—or whatever else was appropriate—or to receive hers—after all, she had drawn him into her arms, hadn't she?—, the French woman had smiled up at him and said, ‘you won’t forget the way to here?’

Claudine smiled wider then, and a dimple appeared on the left corner of her mouth. It looked as if she expected that he’d mar the moment with awkward male boorishness, so he said nothing, merely smiled back; and that was that.

So, a few evenings later, Morse had taken his chance and gone back to her. She had welcomed him back, in her arms, in her bed, with no questions asked, no expectations stated. Merely the hours shared between them; mingled breaths, entangled limbs, sweating skins as close as it was humanly possible, and maybe, just maybe, a common goal. Undoubtedly pleasure, if not a meeting of souls.

So he had stayed the night. And he came back. Again. Until he slept more with her than in his ghosts-filled room.

Her laugh was as luminous and sunny as the bright yellow of the walls of her bedsit. Her embrace, as relaxed and revitalizing as the flowered chintz cushion scattered on her bed. Her teasing ‘ _Get up, sleepy head!_ ’, as welcome as the respite she provided between his bouts of misery.

Her teeth flashed white when she laughed at him, at life, at adventure. For every day was a welcomed exploration for her; and little by little, he let himself be infected with her relish of life, her savouring of everyday gestures—be it making coffee with a battered Moka pot or grilling toasts for their shared breakfasts—and her flashes of fancies—for debate, for exploring a way of life he had merely taken from granted, for the unexpected and the pretty, for the ugly and the complicated, for interrogations to be asked and answers to be questioned with her eyes.

For Claudine had a passion for the vagaries of human life she could freeze into sense with her camera, and an eagerness for his touch. So Morse lost himself in her and hoped she was, by reciprocal eagerness as well as by contagion, also losing herself in him.

Because she was elusive—despite her Latin touchy tendency, he became clingier. To his surprise, he found himself embracing her in the streets, craving her touch—a brush of her hips while they walked side by side; a brush of her arm, as she raised her camera to her eye; a turn of her head, flinging her hair on his neck; a brush of her lips, as if to capture the meaning of her words.

Still, she never spoke of her feelings, and neither did he. But he hoped–how he hoped!—that love hovered between them. She liked him enough, anyway, for the games they devised when they had shed away all their outward disguises, leaving only their skins and their past to shelter their nakedness.

One morning, as she went to and fro in the room, between hotplate and table, wearing only his wrinkled shirt and humming a tune, she sang under her breath part of the lyrics, ‘ _Il faut bien que le corps exulte_ (The body has to rejoice)’ and he raised his eyebrow, his half-hidden face emerging from pillows and folded arm, his puzzlement making her laugh out loud.

So she sang the entire verse then, playfully, meaning it like an actress would when held in thrall by the words she intoned; not guessing that he understood every word, every sentence; that they pierced his heart and that this ‘ _Song of the old lovers_ ’ getting old companionably gave rise to unreasonable expectations in his breast.

So it was that his records stayed unheard in his unused, taciturn bedchamber. The room he only went to for a change of clothes. The solitary room which was on the first floor of the house he shared with Strange. The room he never slept in from now onwards.

And Rosalind Calloway’s voice grew silent, almost forgotten, buried in his memories, waiting patiently to be heard again, as were all the other voices which had given him succour, drowning in beauty and fictional ills all the sores of his life.

But he didn’t lose sleep over it. She—it belonged to the past; a past where his infatuation for a voice had had no more substance, really, than her reality in his life; a ghost, a spirit of illusive beauties. 

And so was the other girl, the one he had tried to save despite herself. The one that got away, accepting only his money, not his love.

She, too, was a ghost. Closing his eyes, inhaling Claudine’s perfume before nibbling at her neck, he almost convinced himself that Joan had never quite really existed. Not as he pictured her, anyway. 

So he tried to let her go, reaching instead for the girl who laughed with him, and talked with a slight accent, and looked at him and at Oxford with a zest for life that made him feel as if he were truly living, too.

Maybe it was time to bid a definite goodbye to the past. _Addio al passato_.

Morse embraced Claudine tighter and she stretched alongside him, tilting her neck and allowing him better access, while his lips left a trail of kisses on her skin.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Lord Byron’s ‘ _She Walks in Beauty_ ’** can be found on [Poetryfoundation.org](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty).
> 
> **Jacques Brel’s _La Chanson des vieux amants (Song of old Lovers)_ Lyrics** are translated [here](http://robkent.com/blog/?p=41). It was recorded in 1967 and you can hear it on [YouTube ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecux7v9OSXE).
> 
> I hope you'll like this introspective piece. Comments would make me the happiest fic author alive!


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